The tender documents state that the initial petascale supercomputer system is to be installed in the 2015-16 financial year for "numerical weather prediction systems (APS3, APS4), environmental and earth system modelling and data assimilation systems, satellite data processing as well as other computational and data-intensive activities in operations and development until January 2019".

Installation of that supercomputer would be expected to begin in September next year and be finished within 11 months, tender documents state.

A second, "mid-life" petascale supercomputer system would be provisioned in calendar year 2018 for "numerical weather prediction systems (APS4, APS5), environmental and earth system modelling and data assimilation systems, satellite data processing as well as other computational and data-intensive activities in operations and development until at least July 2021."

Its installation is scheduled to begin in January 2018 and be finished by November that year. The bureau is expecting an overlap of up to 12 months between the two systems.

As part of the tender process, the bureau last month issued benchmarking code for prospective tenders. The bureau's benchmarking suite tests the performance of systems for weather prediction, climate modelling and oceanographic modelling. The results are combined into a single 'Sustained System Performance' (SSP) score.

The bureau accumulates data at a rate of around 1 terabyte per day, and it expects that that volume will grow by 30 per cent every 18-24 months, tender documents state.

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